


Doors Open

by Waldo



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Community: HorizonsSing, Episode Related, Episode: s01e04 Cyberwoman, Episode: s02e12 Fragments, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-19
Updated: 2008-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/pseuds/Waldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto needs several doors to open.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doors Open

**Author's Note:**

>   Written for [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/horizonssing/profile)[**horizonssing**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/horizonssing/) [Day 20](http://community.livejournal.com/horizonssing/6563.html) which was this quote: _But I was in search of love in those days, and I went full of curiousity and the faint, unrecognized apprehension that here, at last, I should find that low door in the wall, which others, I knew, had found before me, which opened on an enclosed and [enchanted] garden, which was somewhere, not overlooked by any window, in the heart of that grey city._
> 
> \- Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Lisa was getting worse.  He'd have to become more aggressive in his pursuit.  It was time to make contact.

A week later he was practically living at the plaza coffee house.  He'd resorted to drinking herbal tea because what they called coffee, he could use to strip the paint off the decking.

Harkness came by this way everyday and just fucking &lt;I&gt;disappeared&lt;/I&gt; somewhere in the middle of the damn plaza.  For the last seventy-two hours he'd switched over to watching for him at night, convinced that his problem with trying to find his way into Harkness' sanctuary was that he was losing the man in the daytime crowds.  At night there'd be fewer people and he'd be able to observe him from the moment he came into view until he went in wherever he was going in.

The first night he happened to spot him – and really in that greatcoat how could he possibly expect to go unnoticed – Ianto watched as he came across the pavement and then just &lt;I&gt;vanished&lt;/I&gt;.  No one crossed between them cutting off his view, there were no doors or entrances.  Harkness just vanished.

The next night he'd heard a couple of kids telling a story about a monster out in the park.  From what he could hear, it sounded an awful lot like what he'd read about in the Torchwood One databases about critters called Weevils.  Nasty pieces of work living in the sewers of most major UK cities – staying out of view and generally being harmless until they needed to feed.  And they tended to eat humans.

Thinking that he'd found his moment he left his tea on the café table and ran for his car, breaking any number of traffic laws to get to the park before Harkness could find and contain the weevil.

~*~*~*~*~

Sure enough there was a weevil in Bute Park.  Ianto wasn't sure if the Captain was in over his head or not, but if he wanted to make a positive first impression it couldn't hurt to take the large stick he'd found and make his way into the fray.

At the end, however, Harkness thanked him and sent him on his way.  But Ianto had noticed that he was intrigued by the fact that Ianto not only knew what he was fighting, but had joined the battle, knowing what he was fighting.

He ran back to his car, tailing, but ultimately losing Harkness as they made their way back into the city center. 

The next morning he tried bringing him coffee, but once again got the brush off.  So he once again got his tea and staked out the plass.  He'd been close enough to Harkness now to employ a few of the tricks he'd learned in London about tracking someone psychically.  He wouldn't lose him tonight.

And as usual, Ianto's patience paid off.  At nearly one in the morning Harkness came across the pavement and stopped in front of the watertower and just stood there.  There was a 'hiccup' in Ianto's mind as he watched the Captain stand on a pavingstone and start fiddling with the leather band on his arm. 

Ianto realized that normally this was about where he lost track of the other man, but tonight he was able to keep his eye on him since he knew where to look. 

He was slightly less surprised than he supposed he should be when he saw the Captain start sinking through the ground.  Or at least that's what it looked like from his perspective.

~*~*~*~*~

Two days later was Lisa's funeral.  Her family, in Bristol, had decided that they'd waited long enough for a body and had decided to have a service and lay a headstone without one.  Ianto traded in the skin-tight jeans he'd been favoring for one of the few suits he still had from his Torchwood London days.

He was on his way back, in fact he'd just made it off the channel ferry with he noticed the Torchwood SUV driving past where he'd managed to hide his last bet to win over the Captain: his last project from Torchwood London.  A pterodactyl they'd asked him to try to train.  He'd approached her like one might a dog.  He named her and based the commands he taught her on behaviors she exhibited 'naturally'.  He'd been making some headway with her – discovering that as a diet she preferred turkeys to chicken or fish, but that as a treat she liked, of all things, chocolate bars.  He'd always planned to stop by and check on her on his way back that night, so he'd been prepared with a bar of dark chocolate.

He hadn't been prepared to run into Jack Harkness on a deserted road between the channel and the city.

Without thinking he threw himself in front of the speeding SUV, forcing the other man to acknowledge him.

 

He wasn't ready to throw his final card into the ring that night, but fate had other ideas.  There were quips about carrying dinosaur drugs and Ianto had tried being assertive to see if Harkness responded to a stronger personality. He'd even tried begging for all the good it seemed to do.

Then Myfanwy had surprised him by picking up the Captain and flying him around the abandoned warehouse.  Torn between trying to order her to release him – they were at about sixty-forty success with that command, so it wasn't a sure bet anyway – and risking exposing the set up for what it was, Ianto had just stared as his 'pet project', as the others in Research had called it, terrorized the man he wanted to impress.

Then she dropped him and Ianto had been there and he'd put his arms up and decided that if nothing else, he could cushion the other man's fall.

As they both struggled with the fact that they'd gotten the air knocked out of them, they made solid eye-contact for the first time.  And for the first time Ianto saw in those eyes someone he could not just use, but could also respect and admire.  That made everything so much harder.

He pulled himself off the ground before he could see something else he didn't want to see. 

He was walking away when he heard the Captain holler, "Report for work first thing tomorrow."

The relief Ianto felt at that moment was so profound it brought tears to his eyes.

"By the way, love the suit."

Ianto made for the door as fast as any sense of dignity would allow.  If he didn't get some distance he was likely to turn around and yell, "I'm only in it because I 'buried' the one person in this world who loves me and who I'm willing to whore myself out to save."

It wasn't until he was at the door of his small flat that he realized that he didn't know what _time_ tomorrow or where to report and he had no idea how to contact Harkness to find out.

Well, six-o'clock should be early enough.  And he could just stand on the paving stone/door he'd seen Harkness on the other day.  Eventually the man would have to come up that way and he'd find him.

Once inside the flat he'd pulled out the other suit he'd saved when cramming what few possessions he could into his car when he'd fled London.  Apparently one of the keys to keeping Harkness off his guard would be to present himself as a pretty boy.

He threw himself down on his bed and set the alarm for four.  He'd need to check on Lisa before reporting for work and doing whatever it took.


End file.
